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Sundays too my father got up early
and put on his clothes in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather
made banked fires blaze.
No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the coal splinter, breaking.
When the room was warm, he’d call
and slowly I would rise and dress
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
From A Ballad of Remembrance
© Paul Breman, London,1962
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Robert Hayden (1913 – 1980) was an American writer and teacher. Born in Detroit, Michigan, his childhood was traumatic and he suffered from depression and severe nearsightedness. An avid reader even as a chld, Robert attended several different colleges and universities, taught at the University of Michigan and Fisk University, and served as poet-in-residence or visiting poet at numerous other schools. From 1976 -1978, he served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (a position now known as U.S. Poet Laureate), the first African-American writer to hold that office. Much of Robert’s work centered around history, nature, and Black culture. The U.S. Postal Service honored him with a stamp series in 2012 called Twentieth Century American Poets.
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